Prehysteria! — Prehysteria!(Blu Ray & DVD)

Appearing in the early 1990’s Prehysteria! was a campy, tacky, though often charming/ lightly amusing slice of family fantasy- featuring a group of miniature dinosaurs turning up in a US family home. The film was the first feature to appear from Moonbeam Pictures- which was the family-focused branch of Charles Bands Full Moon Pictures. Here we have a dual format Blu Ray & DVD release of the film from last year- it features a director's commentary and a making-of from when it originally came out.

Released in 1993 Prehysteria! was jointly directed by Charles Band, and his father Albert. It’s an enjoyable enough romp with Brand taking Puppetmaster like puppets/ Stop motion creature effect retooling them in much more charming & cute manner with four dinosaurs- taking in dinky Tyrannosaurus rex, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, and flying pterodactyl. The film has a bright, rapid pace- fitting the other films released under the Moonbeam banner- sure it’s not as wacky or bizarre as some of the other films the sub-label released, but if you're after 70 minutes of family fantasy fun & light thrills I think you’ll enjoy what we have here.

The film focus in on widowed raisin farmer Frank(Brett Cullen), his pre-teen Elvis loving son(Austin O'Brien), and rebellious teen daughter. During downtime farming, Frank uncovers all manner of fossils- which he takes to antiquities shop to sell. Here works Vick, who Frank is rather keen on, and they start up a relationship. One day Frank brings in a bunch of newly discovered fossils, when his dog accidently picks up (!) the wrong cooler- it turns out inside the cooler are four eggs that Vicki’s rather nasty boss Rico(Stephen Lee) has stolen from the mystical cave of rainforest natives- he’s a great often bumbling baddie who looks a bit like a moustached Lou Costello. Fairly soon the eggs hatch in the families basement with the young son looking on- he, of course, is in awe of the tinny Dinosaurs- naming the mischievous & purring Tyrannosaurus rex Elvis, with the rest of the family meeting the four & falling for them soon too. And as you’d expect the campily nasty Rico turns up to try & get his catch back. Save for slightly plodding, though charming enough early build-up Prehysteria! is a lot of fun when the dinky-osars turn up. The film went onto be followed by two sequels, which I'm sure would be neat to check out too.

Moving onto this duel Blu Ray & DVD release- and the new print looks good & nicely crisp. On the extra front we get a commentary track- it's with Charles Band, and the now all grown-up lead Austin O'Brien- the tracks, as expected chatty & laid back. With the pair moving from talking about on-set memories, the impressive puppet/ Stop animation, the film's popularity back in the video days, and more. All in all, it’s decent enough track. The other extra we get is a twenty-one minute making from the1990’s- with a blend of cast interviews, on set shots, and effects shots.

It’s cool to see this charming slice of 1990’s family fantasy get a duel reissue- and let us hope there are plans afoot at some point to reissue the two sequels, and of course other Moonbeam fare. Head over to full moon to hook up a copy of this direct here.